Congratulations to Professor Sonya Lipsett-Rivera (Department of History) for winning the prestigious 2020 María Elena Martínez Prize for best book in Mexican History.
Lipsett-Rivera receives this honour for The Origins of Macho: Men and Masculinity in Colonial Mexico which explores stereotypical misrepresentations of Mexican men as defined by machismo, excessive virility, bravado, and violence. Lipsett-Rivera reveals in her analysis, that, in reality, serenity and equanimity were the social ideals of colonial Mexico.
Using judicial sources, The Origins of Macho addresses this contrast by studying how men interacted with each other and how they adapted the contradictory standards of tranquillity while upholding their honour and social reputation.
"For me, winning this prize is an incredible honour. Every book takes an incredible amount of time to research, think about, and then write—it is a long and arduous process but also one that is quite solitary," said Lipsett-Rivera.
"It is hard to let one's creation out into the world and so to have this recognition is so gratifying and such a boost within this time of pandemic."
The María Elena Martínez Prize is awarded annually to the book which is judged as the most significant work on Mexico's history published during the previous year. It is given by the Conference of Latin American History which is part of the American Historical Association.
The committee who chose Lipsett-Rivera as this year's winner had this to say about her book:
"The committee found Origins of Macho to be an outstanding work—one that makes path-breaking contributions to our understanding of gender and masculinities in colonial Mexico, even as it also offers important comparative insights to the workings of masculinity in other periods and places. Moreover, we found Origins to be very engagingly written, offering a well-crafted narrative that delves repeatedly and deeply into rich vignettes from the source material, while never losing sight of how those examples serve to advance the book's analytical argument. In short: a tour de force."